Tag Archives: food hunger worldwide

The program “Marketplace” featured a series of reports on food challenges we will face as the world population continues to grow. There are 7 billion people living on the planet today, and according to the United Nations, there will be another 2 billion by the middle of this century.

The Marketplace program, Food for 9 Billion, is a collaboration of Marketplace, Homeland Productions, PBS NEWSHOUR and the Center for Investigative Reporting. It examines the challenge of feeding the world at a time of growing population, shrinking land and water resources, climate changes and rising food and energy prices.

The Philippines — where more than 2 million babies are born every year — is one of the countries featured in the program series. The report by Sam Eaton starts:

There’s a saying in the Philippines, “pantawid gutom.” It means to “cross the hunger.” When a family can’t afford rice, they’ll water down a pack of instant noodles or feed their babies brown sugar dissolved in water to ease the hunger pangs. The fact that this saying even exists should tell you something about what it means to be poor here. Clarissa Canayong is 42 years old. She has 10 surviving children — the youngest only a year old. And she lives in an urban Manila slum called Vitas, at the edge of a garbage dump.

Population growth among the poor in the Philippines, where birth control remains largely out of reach, is about four times higher than the rest of the country.– Sam Eaton/Marketplace

Click here to listen to the radio broadcast, and to view the related videos and photos for the series (http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/food-9-billion/philippines-too-many-mouths).

More than a quarter of the Philippines’ population lives in poverty — many in conditions similar to these.– Sam Eaton/Marketplace